


Cheap Shots

by composersboy



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, College AU, F/M, M/M, Mental Illness, Recreational Drug Use, Underage Drinking, everybody is kinda rich and kinda douchey
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-20
Updated: 2015-04-29
Packaged: 2018-03-13 20:46:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3395786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/composersboy/pseuds/composersboy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roxas is blond haired, blue eyed, and all things conventional, growing up desensitized to his father’s wealth and the trashy vices of the only friends he has ever known. His stagnant habits and reoccurring wallows of self pity only change when he meets Axel, a man who’s bark is questionably worse than his bite.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Vinyl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was Seifer who opened his mouth before Roxas could, and he gave a look in his direction that was more like a sneer than a friendly hello. “Haven’t seen you in a while, asswipe. How long has it been, last fall?”
> 
> "I didn’t know you were still keeping in contact with Hayner." He leveled, asking himself why he had the urge to come over this way to begin with. "I thought you would have turned tail and never seen this place again."
> 
> "Nah, unlike you, I’m not as miserable as the bird that connected with my windshield two weeks ago. Twilight Hill is my home. What about you? Did you even make it to graduation?"

Today wasn’t turning out quite as dandy as Roxas had hoped it would be. He raised his head off of the mattress in order to pull his body closer towards the nightstand, where his smart phone lay plugged into the wall to regain its charge before he had passed out to the dawn creeping up in the blinds of his bedroom window. He blinked hard, his eyes crusted and sore from the sleep that he still wasn’t sure that he had had or not, and he fumbled at the touch screen until he was able to pull up the current time. White numbers indicated that it was nearly five in the afternoon.

A piece of him thought he ought to string a curse for screwing up his sleep schedule worse than he could possibly, ever physically accomplish in his entire life––at least up until this point. He could still vaguely recall pulling himself out of bed a few hours ago to down a couple of pills that were meant to stifle his splitting headache or finally put him out of his never-ending misery. The hopes were followed by him smothering his own head with a pillow with the intent of passing back out for the rest of his existence. His head felt so wretched to him, even more disturbed than the searing ache in his body that came from falling off his skateboard too many times, indulging in way too many ice cream bars, or from the realization that this was probably the way that his heart was going to stop beating: hurt, alone, and completely untouched at the peak of his sexual youth.

It was then that Roxas noted he was even more messed up than he originally thought, if he was more concerned about dying a virgin than about finding out if the pills he took were about to bring anything he might have eaten within the last day up through his esophagus in a burning, foul smelling heap.

The phone fell back on the table with a loud, obnoxious clatter that surely wasn’t going to help the remaining pain that his head was in. His body momentarily fell lax on the bed once more, as he considered how much worth it would be to wait for a car to pull into the garage and have an angry parent pounding at the door for wasting away a perfect summer morning by being some kind of metaphorical diarrhea instead of doing something they had to know was illegal or stupid with the town kids he grew up calling his friends.

Really, this day wasn’t that far fetched from any other one in the life of a pretty, blue–eyed and sunbathed seventeen–year–old. Which was why he could bite through the protest in his limbs as he hauled himself to his feet and stumbled into the hall in search for a glass of cold water and a shower just as frigid. Once he had the water going and he was able to keep his eyes open properly, he thought back to the glowing message icons that hid behind the clock of his cell. No doubt they were from at least three different people, all having to say the same exact thing only in different words. What kind of self centered prick was he to ignore the call of the wild? After all, today was officially Friday, and even if they liked to slaughter sobriety on any other day of the week, this was a Friday––which meant they needed to get themselves even extra fucked up before two a.m.

It never seemed to matter to them that there wasn’t a single other thing on this Earth that he would rather be doing than hopping between underage parties, taking a puff, or watching as every other kid his age disappeared behind closed doors to have a good time with someone they may or may not have known before the day had started. But, of course, why would that trigger even an ounce of sympathy in their privileged little minds when he had never actually attempted to get out of following the crowd in the first place?

Roxas could be in the shower for half a millennium pondering over his destructive life choices without ever finding a meaning for them. It was simply something that was.

Drying himself off and dressing in something black and red from the dirty pile of clothes he’d abandoned in the corner of his room, his wandering thoughts were distracted by a fresh string of text tones. Groaning, telling himself that one of these days he might better himself as a human being and detach from Hayner, Pence, and Olette, he picked up his phone to catch up on the invitations he had been missing out on. Apparently, there was going to be a bonfire on the beach with––”get this”––a mass of college students “we wouldn’t dream of getting the chance to hang out with for another four years,” and if the blond “doesn’t pick up in the next half hour,” Hayner was going to personally drive over to his house and take a mallet to his window, dragging him to that party dead or alive.

Asking Hayner to direct his weapon of choice to his skull rather than the glass would have been too merciful of him.

Quick–moving fingers relayed the message that he wouldn’t dare miss it for the sake of his friend’s potential violent act giving a hernia to the rather old, long–haired cat his mother cherished like a second born child, even though the feline spent most of its time napping in his teenage–stench abode. The response he got was something snarky, something impeccably Hayner, that Roxas didn’t bother trying to register as he pulled on a pair of shiny Bathing Apes.

Trying to maintain his cowlick after brushing pearly teeth would prove to be futile, much like every morning he’d been threading fingers through the strands over the years. He had fought with the mane starting in the later years of elementary school, and never had there been an instance which his hair failed to stick up the way that it did at the top or fall swept so dramatically to the right. Well, except for that period of time in middle school when he had shaved his head out of frustration––but there were bigger worries than reflecting on the eighth grade. Deciding against a snapback for today, he figured crying over spilled milk wasn’t going to be getting him anywhere in life, much like the state of his deteriorating mental health.

His friend announced his arrival with a loud, unnecessary honk in the driveway.  A piece of him began to wonder why he hadn’t offered to drive himself, in case he wanted to duck out of the party early, before he had even set foot out the door. He was sure to lock up the house behind him before falling into the passenger side of the other teenager’s Honda Civic.

“I thought you might have fallen off the edge of the planet, slut bag,” Hayner commented with a smirk while simultaneously throwing an arm on the back of Roxas’ seat to make sure he wasn’t about to reverse straight into a mailbox. “Or gotten yourself petrified or something. You know, that whole frozen–in–fear look Hermione has after looking into the eyes of the Basilisk just wouldn’t suit you. The baby face of a twelve–year–old, though? You got that one covered.”

“She saw them in the reflection of a hand mirror,” Roxas corrected while fastening his seat belt across his waist. “Looking directly into its eyes would have killed her. Honestly, I’m not sure which would be the better option at this point.”

“Aw, lighten up, man! This is going to be fun. Parties, music, free drinks, and older women all gathered together at Sunset? You love Sunset.”

“I’m also the only one in our foursome who still hasn’t turned eighteen.”

“I’m telling you, dude, I’m sure there’s a broad or two out there that couldn’t give a shit that you’re not legal age ‘for the next two months.’ If they aren’t asking for your age, it doesn’t concern them. Besides, there’s an age of consent for a reason.”

His response was to put his forehead to the glass of his door window and let out a sigh, instead of telling Hayner how morally corrupt the idea was. Not only that, but when had a sloppy drunk ever appealed to him in terms of taking a girl up to his bedroom. In fact, since when had any girl ever––

This conversation was quickly becoming the same version of every one that the two of them had together. It was a repetitive cycle that Roxas hoped would one day turn into something that actually gave him a sense of self discovery, a breath of fresh air being breathed into his veins. A piece of him wished he could die, to escape this kind of dull suffering, yet another piece of him knew that he had to go on living in this world even when he didn’t see the best in it. After college, he was sure none of this would even matter anymore, that none of the kids he went to high school with would keep in touch with him for long, and he’d be able to switch his outlook to the next feet–dragging thing that came with adulthood.

“Hey, what was the deal with your cryptic messages last night?” Hayner’s strong voice pulled the other boy out of the deepest corners of his mind. Chocolate eyes glued to the road, a finger reached out to jab Roxas in the thigh to emphasis that the question was most certainly directed at him, and not to the air. “I couldn’t tell if your soul was crying or if you were in actual, physical pain from that weird sonnet you sent me.”

“It was just a headache.” Right. He remembered sending something deep and lyrical about the tirade in his head. After hours of rolling around in agony, he could have easily believed it was part of the dreams he flickered in and out of all night. “I believe it was supposed to be read to the tune of Blank Space, but who really knows?”

“I thought you were baked,” the guy said with a laugh. It was a sound that came out genuine, but for reasons that Roxas didn’t quite understand himself, it was a noise that more often than not caused his fingers to twinge in annoyance. A truck load of baggage and poor choices aside, Hayner had never really done anything to make Roxas hate him. He almost felt bad for his lack of attachment to the boy, or even to Pence, or Olette, though he figured it all came down to being part of the I Hate Everything Else About Twilight Hill package.

Not too long later, they found themselves parking in a lot filled with other cars and air that bounced with music. Roxas was about to ask why the party was starting so early when he swung open the car door and caught a whiff that unmistakably belonged to barbecue. That’s right, Hayner had said that these kids were older, and that meant that they bothered to feed themselves something other than a couple pounds of stale Cheetos and Cosmic Brownies as long as they could afford it. His stomach started to scream at him as soon as his nose took in the scent of roasting meat. He hadn’t had anything to eat in a good fourteen hours, and he was going to regret it soon if he didn’t find a plate that he could shamelessly shove down his gullet.

“Come on.” Hayner was hitting the lock button on his keys while browsing his phone for Olette and Pence’s location with his free hand. He seemed to have found it rather quick, or Roxas had completely spaced him texting while at the wheel, because he was almost immediately pointing in the direction of a shack. “They’re waiting for us over there.”

He followed solely for the reason that he couldn’t put a name to any other face his eyes landed on. As much as the four of them were known to be tightly knit, that never stopped him from wandering on his own at these kinds of gatherings. His parents had forced him to take all kinds of debate and other public speaking related classes before he graduated, so it wasn’t like he didn’t know how to socialize, just that he didn’t see how any of these other bodies could provide a different atmosphere than anyone else in this town he had known all his life. It was suffocating, but at least his friends still managed to acknowledge his existence every once in a while. It was the only thing that kept his mind rooted to the ground instead of taking wing into the clouds. What was it again, that made the weightlessness and white blankets such a bad idea to lose himself in? What better way was there to breathe in a place like this?

At least today’s event happened to be taking place on the beach. His friend hadn’t been joking when he said that Roxas enjoyed Sunset. There was always something comforting in the way that the sand moved beneath his feet, something endearing in the way the sky and and water changed colors as the sun set behind the ocean. It was a mystery as to how clean his Bapes managed to look with how much the boy loved to roam this place. Maybe it had something to do with the maid that visited the house three days out of the week, or maybe he didn’t come to this location as often as he wished he had.

Olette greeted him with a wide smile and a short, lung crushing hug. “I’m glad you could make it! I couldn’t imagine coming down here while you stayed at home. I feel like that should be a crime that would land you in jail. Do not go to the beach without Roxas.”

He and Pence echoed the chuckle that followed behind her words, and Roxas gave her a smile that appeared somewhat distant. Out of the three of them, he liked to believe that the girl was the sweetest, most well put together one in their friend group. Although, that only seemed to be the case before she had a red plastic cup tilted to her lips.

“Right. So, where can a guy get something to eat around here? My stomach is going to start ingesting itself any minute now.”

She directed him behind her to where some upbeat–looking guys worked together to slave up enough hot dogs and burgers for the Imperial Army. Neither Roxas nor Pence had to be told twice, and they were elbowing each other with the challenge of Who Will Get There First before taking off in a sprint with the promise of filling their stomachs.

The food tasted just as heavenly as it smelled; Roxas had licked his fingers clean in only a matter of minutes. Without the distraction of a neglected appetite, he was able direct his attention towards the crowd he had found himself immersed in. It was a strange scene, one he both found himself completely familiar with and foreign to at the same time. He wasn’t used to being around this many college kids at once. For the most part, they had all packed up and left Twilight Hill as soon as they had gotten the opportunity, even when they had a beautiful stretch of sand to hang around on. A large portion of the students couldn’t possibly have been from around here, though, because they just didn’t seem to have that air around them that the rest of the citizens in the area carried with them. Roxas would have at least picked up that much from them by now, if that were the case. He found himself giving Hayner a sideways glance as he caught the sight of a couple guys tackling a few giggly girls clad in bathing suits into the shallows of salty waves. “So, who was it that told you about this? How’d you know that it was going on?”

“Seifer told me, of course,” Hayner replied before popping a thumb into his mouth to lick off the stray ketchup there. His shrug was nonchalant, as it always was when asked for information about his news source. “He’s gotta be around here somewhere, I just haven’t seen him yet.”

A jolt passed through Roxas’ sternum as he recognized the name. His gaze scanned through the mass of people once again, this time intent on spotting a familiar figure. The search ended up being fairly easy, and he soon locked the nineteen–year–old student in his sight. He should have known it would be him, of all people, to bring a party to such a godforsaken town like this one. He always had a pretentious habit of relishing in whatever attention was brought to him out of milking what little popularity he could gather from their corner of the universe. It was cocky, a little pathetic, really; however, Roxas couldn’t help the bitter admiration he had for the guy in trying to make a better predicament out of what deck the forces of time and space had dealt to them. How could you turn a cheek or spit on a man for striving to improve his own way of living?

Well, Roxas had been that person, once upon a time. He hoped that day would remain buried in the past until he died of old age or got hit by a truck––whichever came first. His personal vote was teetering toward the four wheeler.

“I’m going to go talk to him.” Why, exactly? He didn’t know. Hayner was the one who had the healthiest relationship with the student, and even they didn’t get along on a good day. The routine was rooted long back into their middle school days, and his friend didn’t give any means of complaint as the youngest among them hopped to his feet. He weaved through what bodies stood between them until he was sure that he walked into the guy’s inside–voice range of hearing.

It was Seifer who opened his mouth before Roxas could, and he gave a look in his direction that was more like a sneer than a friendly hello. “Haven’t seen you in a while, asswipe. How long has it been, last fall?”

“I didn’t know you were still keeping in contact with Hayner.” He leveled, asking himself why he had the urge to come over this way to begin with. “I thought you would have turned tail and never seen this place again.”

“Nah, unlike you, I’m not as miserable as the bird that connected with my windshield two weeks ago. Twilight Hill is my home. What about you? Did you even make it to graduation?”

“You know my parents would skin me alive if I didn’t maintain a grade point average above a three point five.”

“Ahh… that’s right. They never change, do they, rucksack?”

“That they don’t.”

The contemptuous look that held up the corner of Seifer’s lips only seemed to deepen, shadowing his laugh lines. It was then that the boy took notice of the scar that came down between the college kid’s brows and snaked just beneath his right eye. He forced himself to look directly into the guy’s eyes instead, so that he wasn’t caught staring. The story behind that beauty mark was one that he already knew, and he wasn’t about to bring it up here. “Neither do you.”

Choosing not to be goaded into beanie head’s bait, Roxas shifted the weight in his feet and folded his arms across his chest while looking back up at Seifer with a fixed gaze. He had to look up at almost everybody he had a conversation with, having been graced with the genes of any world famous model without the height to match. “So how long were you planning this little affair?”

“What, you mean this?” His arms extended to gesture at every body and musical note in its entirety. “I might have mentioned something like it, but this wasn’t my doing.”

That piece of information shouldn’t have caused Roxas to look as worried as he suddenly did. He frowned, the sapphires in his eye sockets narrowing as he considered the possible alternative. His gaze flickered in the direction of the girl rocking a pixie cut and the burly, brown–skinned guy that stood near Seifer, but he was already shaking his head at Roxas in a way that shot down those suspicions immediately. There wasn’t another person alive that had grown up on Twilight Hill that the short stuff could imagine paying a willing visit here, let alone showing up while stringing a party along behind them. Whoever the perpetrator was, they had to have some crazy hypnotism magic to convince this large of a crowd to invest their time and money on this typical Friday in the middle of June. At that point, they might as well toss all their cash and alcohol into a pit and set it on fire to watch it burn. That, or maybe they were some sort of psycho maniac that held a pistol in the air with a warning that everyone would either go along with this rendezvous to Sunset, or he would let the bullets fly. “But… if it wasn’t you, then whose idea was it?”

"This was all thanks to Vasile, obviously!” He had to flinch back as Seifer nearly shouted the words in his face. A wrong word choice, “obviously,” because there wasn’t a single nerve in his body that registered the name as familiar. He didn’t find anything evident in a name like that, positive that he had never heard it a single day in his seventeen years living. Only, his former neighborhood bully had said it with such superiority, a tone that clearly meant anybody who’s anybody knows that name, that Roxas immediately found himself on edge. If he didn’t know any better, he would have thought that Seifer was merely talking out of excitement, and not with the intent of summoning whoever this mystery person could be. But Roxas did happen to know better than that, and that was exactly why his shoulders tensed and his jaw locked together to be just as stiff as the rest of his limbs.

As if on cue, a hand with long, slender fingers appeared from behind Seifer’s head to clasp down on his shoulder. Mr. Vasile appeared to have cheated the laws of physics entirely, with the way that he just materialized out of thin air like his very name was a sigil to transport him from wherever he happened to be standing ten seconds ago. The second thing Roxas was able to notice about him, other than his hand, was the ridiculously spiky, firetruck-red hair he was sporting on top of his head. Other than the few pieces that hung down in front of his ears, the rest of his mane was pushed back out of his face. He had a kind of widow’s peak that Roxas was sure he had never laid eyes on, just like he was certain he had never heard of the guy’s name before. How exactly did a man with hair like that dodge his field of vision when he thoroughly scoped out the place whilst pushing a hot dog into his mouth?

“Speak of the devil!” Seifer said with a grin and a head tilted toward him, unperturbed.

The guy was ethereal, to say the least. Roxas soon found that he wasn’t at all surprised by his sudden appearance, though he also felt vaguely threatened upon sight. His brain had suddenly decided to do that thing where it pretends to be fried out, thinking cogs stuck, and his mouth remained shut in a thin, tight line. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t need to.

“Of course I’m the one behind all this,” the newcomer said while leaning forward and giving a conceited smile. This guy must have had some kind of bizarre psychic ability, or there was no telling how he managed to catch every word of their conversation while not standing there to hear a single syllable of it. “If there’s going to be a festivity worth talking about, it’s going to be one that’s hosted by yours truly. There isn’t any other sentient being more capable of bringing this much joy to the masses. If there was, he would be gagged, bound, and thrown into tonight’s bonfire before having the opportunity to prove it. And who, Seifer, is this dainty princess? I’m not sure if the directions on tonight’s RSVP said anything about baking cupcakes in Barbie’s Dream House.”

That was all that it took for Roxas to decide that he hated him more than anybody, or anything, in Twilight Hill put together. “I didn’t think that it said anything about a Lion King reenactment, either, but here we are, graced with the presence of Mufasa himself.”

The man’s eyes, an acidic green that screamed radioactivity, glinted in amusement. It was questionable as to whether his eyes were naturally almond-thin, or if they were accentuated by the black eyeliner he had winged to a point that any kind of woman would strangle for. “Got ourselves a smartass, do we? Do tell me what your second choice crack was going to be if you hadn’t settled on the animated feline version of Hamlet. I’m dying to hear it.”

“Knuckles the Echidna is supposed to be taking steroids now, but after meeting you, I can see that it was a figment of imagination in the minds of the world wide web.”

At least Seifer had the decency to snort, eyes rolling. The walking porcupine, on the other hand, was smiling a kind of grin that challenged a Cheshire cat. Roxas continued to look in the general direction of that polished face, unable to maintain eye contact long enough to particularly focus on the other’s gaze. Seriously, this guy was some sort of metamorphic rock carved out by Lorenzo Bartolini himself. No human being should ever have skin that smooth.

“And who exactly are you supposed to be?”

“Blaze the Cat,” he responded, his expression and tone of voice just as stagnant as in the beginning of the conversation.

“While I’m sickeningly impressed with the fact that you didn’t try to compare yourself to Shadow, I’m not talking Sonic the Hedgehog analogies here. I’m asking for your name.”

Ideally, he would have liked to snap back some sort of bullshitty response to get underneath this guy’s skin. What happened in actuality was that his tongue promptly decided to stop working, becoming sand behind his teeth, and Seifer was the one who ended up speaking up in his stead to introduce him.  “This is Roxas Oar.”

Still leaning on the other college student, Vasile offered his free fingers for a handshake. There was something menacing in his eyes—daring, catlike, that had Roxas decidedly keeping his own arm welded to his side. A slim brow quirked up along with his indication. “The name’s  _Axel_. Pleasure to meet you, kiddo, but I’m afraid I don’t give out free beer to middle schoolers. You’re gonna have to raid your father’s pantry if you’re looking for a buzz.”

“I’m graduated.” He wasn’t expecting his response to come out so quickly, and he wasn’t even sure that it was him who had spoken at first. The stranger’s hand dropped back down to his hip as if realizing the misanthrope wasn’t going to take it. “And I don’t need your handouts. Mom never asks when something goes missing from the liquor cabinet.”

Roxas didn’t care enough to point out that he could buy all the drinks he could ever want with the money his father poured into his bank account. Not only would that have been overkill, arrogant, and all kinds of stupid to say, he didn’t have any sort of reverence towards his family’s wealth in the first place. He didn’t care to mention the money, and he was most definitely not looking to impress the college student.

Not that it deterred Axel from making his own assumptions. “So, mommy and daddy consciously cater to your howling to the moon. Isn’t that peachy keen of them to do?”

“Saves me the trouble of finding a stranger who will go out and do it for me.”

“So you’re underage, but you’re a graduate,” the man said with a click of his tongue, hankering back to the root of the topic. “Taking into account how fucking tiny you are, I can’t see how you could really be that old. Are you even eighteen?”

“… Not ‘til August.” He considered lying for a fraction of a second, but he knew it would have been less embarrassing to come out with the truth forthright than to have Seifer give him away the moment he opened up his mouth.

There was an arrogant shift in Axel’s expression that punched through his retinas and drilled directly into his sternum. He wasn’t sure what it was about the look that pissed him off so much, but the blond felt the need to smash Axel’s teeth into the back of his throat.

“Ahh, I see. You’re one of the babies in your class.”

“I’m not a baby.” The annoyance had to be clear on his face now, brows furrowed together as finally he held Axel’s gaze.

“No, but apparently you’re just as sensitive as one.”

“That’s rich, coming from a guy who’s so desperate to be the center of attention that he jokes about throwing anyone else with any hint of comedic value into a bonfire.”

“I’m highly aware of what I am and what I’m not. You, on the other hand, are an entirely different story. Kids your age are always so violently serious and foam at the mouth just to get a little bit of recognition in the adult world. And when you don’t get the attention that you want, you throw a fit about it. You pitch a fit about almost everything.”

“I never said that I wanted your attention.” Because he most definitely didn’t. He was regretting everything that had left his mouth to get the redheaded man involved with his and Seifer’s conversation.

“No, but that doesn’t change the fact that you can’t handle being referred to as an infant without taking it so personally. You ought to be a little more mature than that by the time you’re tugging off a graduation gown.”

“And you think you have the audacity to judge how a person’s mind works after a five minute conversation?”

“You can learn a lot about a person in five minutes if you’re actually paying attention.”

“All that I’ve learned during this entire conversation is that you’re an idiot.”

“Nice come back. Your maturity level is about as low as your age.”

“That’s not true,” he bit his lip at that, seeing that his words weren’t doing anything except proving the madman that he was right. Roxas couldn’t tell if he was more angry with the weird redhead existing or more irritated with himself for opening his mouth to make a fool out of himself. Top of the class on his debate team? Yeah, right. He imagined the offspring of a chimpanzee would hold up their end of the conversation better than he could in this situation.

“Could have fooled me, True Blue.” He was full with enough sarcasm and douche–baggery that Roxas could see it leaking out of Axel’s ears. The blond imagined that if he didn’t have such a striking face that kind of cocksure sludge would send everybody else on the beach packing. “You put up a compelling argument. I have been truly enlightened, really, honestly, and I must admit how completely in the wrong I had been. Won’t you please search deep down inside yourself to glorify me with your forgiveness?”

“Go to hell. You just met me. You couldn’t possibly know anything about me.”

Seifer was raising a pair of sandy colored eyebrows at this point, nonetheless it was flamesilocks who continued to jab, “But I do. All you miniature Calvin Klein models are disgustingly the same. You think you’re some kind of special snowflake, lost in a world where nobody understands you, when you’re an exact replica of a hundred others that walk this planet. I can see it just by the look in your eyes.”

Had Blondie expected any of this to come tumbling out of a stranger’s mouth, he might have lunged for his throat. He was off guard; filled with an equal amount of fury to the confusion icing his lungs. Forget about breaking all of Axel’s teeth. Picking up a stick off the ground and beating the guy within an inch of his life, or possibly dragging him out into the ocean until he stopped coming up for air, was beginning to sound a lot more satisfying. If Roxas didn’t believe that he had an ounce of sanity left within him, he wouldn’t have put a fist in his mouth then or bit down on it hard enough to leave indents; keeping himself from screaming. What he needed right now was to a breath of air that wasn’t being shared by this self proclaimed Party King, not a physical fight that may or may not get him thrown into a juvenile detention center. Ignoring a laugh that was surely coming from a hot–headed mouth–runner, as well as a doleful call of his name from Seifer, he stormed off to the other end of the party without another word. All while pretending to reengage himself in a conversation with his fellow graduating class, Roxas considered the possibility of that stranger rambling out of drunken stupidity. What part of his existence could the other man know about him, when he didn’t even know his name prior to this party? Axel was just an insecure, deadbeat, frat boy who thrived off of everybody else’s anguish. Every word that had spluttered from his mouth wasn’t anything except a load of complete, utter garbage.

He made sure to steer clear of Axel Vasile until Hayner or somebody else in his friend group decided that it was time to mosey on back home. Roxas kicked a small rock as he strolled past it a few hours later; muttering a curse under his breath. The boy was angry at himself for not bringing his own car to the beach, because by the end of tonight he was most likely going to end up on a drunken Hayner, Pence, or Olette’s bedroom floor instead of being able to crash beneath his own covers. Becoming the designated driver for these parties was a memory that Roxas had ought to remember, but the more he thought about it the more he was convinced that it was something the others decided without his actual input. Roxas was the one who stayed the cleanest out of the four of them anyhow, wasn’t he? What would be the point in taking a vote when you already know who the most reliable person was going to be? It was maddening; a hefty reminder as to why he was so emotionally detached from them in the first place.

Roxas found a small, bent tree shrouded by other brush and a blackened sky for him to comfortably lean on. His location was close enough that he could still make out the voices that laughed, shouted, or sang around the bonfire, but far enough away to know that people weren’t going to be aiming any part of their conversation at him. He let his head fall back and tried to focus on the sound of the waves tumbling over each other in the distance, drowning out the noise that came from a hundred different bodies supposedly under the age of thirty. It was truly magnificent that a cop car hadn’t come tearing down the road with its lights flashing and its sirens blaring. To Roxas it wasn’t impressive at all, because it was something that this crowd had yet to understand that was just part of being on Twilight Hill territory. The police force around here couldn’t care less about what was happening in their town. Some days Roxas was tempted to walk into the middle of the station, blunt in hand, to blow a nice, long stream of smoke in the deputy’s face, but he knew that the act wouldn’t have anyone lifting a finger to put him in handcuffs.

He wasn’t sure how long he stood under that tree. All he knew was that he had only just started to consider getting himself as slammed as the rest of the crew when he noticed, with a start, a pair of feet coming towards him. Not even motivated to stand up straight, he waited as the figure had ducked their head beneath the canopy of leaves and met his gaze.

Seifer’s eyes were a strange kind of blue, one that had enough green around the pupils and flecks in the rest of his irises that made you want to double take before properly identifying what color they really were. Depending on what point the sun had risen in the sky, Roxas would tell you one or the other. Here on the star lit ocean side, it was too impossible to tell even if you squinted.

“I thought that was you I saw hiding over here.”

“You found me,” The boy replied, sounding like he had been caught during a boring, uneventful round of hide–and–go–seek. He remained still as the ex–Disciplinary Committee member bridged the gap between them and trapped him between a neighboring tree trunk and a well–defined arm. Roxas could smell the alcohol on Seifer’s breath with the close proximity of their faces, and feel the warmth of it, too. Still, the much shorter of the two didn’t lift a finger in order to put some distance back between them.

His quip brought a smile on to Seifer’s face as well as rose a chuckle out of him that was as soft as the tone of his voice. “You kind of piss me off. I don’t understand you.”

“Really? Because your friend seems to think it’s pretty easy to.”

He appeared to be weighing the words inside his head before responding with, “You know, I have never seen Vasile go off on someone like that before. I wouldn’t worry about it too much if I were you, Roxas. Your face would make anyone want to kick you in the balls.”

“If that was supposed to make me feel better, you couldn’t have done a worse job at it.”

“I’m being serious with you here! Don’t let someone you just met keep you from having a good time.”

Seifer moved his body closer until Roxas felt one of the other’s knees brushing against his own. Between the touch and the college boy’s hovering mouth, he was finding it difficult to concentrate on anything else. His lips must have had a mind of their own, which would explain how reciprocated so quickly, “You never did strike me as the caring type.”

“There’s a lot more about me that you haven’t bothered to realize,” Assured, as always. It looked like he hadn’t changed a bit in the ten months that they hadn’t seen each other. There was a tone in his voice that Roxas long since learned that signified the conversation was over. Not that he could take the trouble to add anything else anyhow, because Seifer had taken the initiative of bringing himself even closer to Roxas’ body. His hands tightened into nervous fists at his sides, the thrumming in his chest doing a leap of faith into the pits of his stomach before crawling back up into the cavity it belonged. He could vaguely hear his pulse in his ears and note a tingling in his legs as his breath hitched from other’s mouth brushing against his own. There wasn’t enough pressure behind the act that could clarify it as a kiss, but the conveyed motion was as close as could be.

Was he waiting for Roxas to make a move? Whenever Seifer wanted to get his way with something, he had never shown any concern for what the other involved party might think. Perhaps his response was all that mattered in this situation, to see if he reacted positively or not to his advances. One part of him thought to put a palm against Seifer’s face and shove him off, while another just didn’t care about the resulting damage in getting intimately involved with someone like this guy. His head was still spinning by the time the tension in the air was shot, and not by one of the two hungrily putting their lips on the other’s, whereas a voice that belonged to Hayner had shouted at them, “Rooxass! It’s time to go, man!”

Beanie cap didn’t shift away at the call. His head pulled back only slightly, mouth forming a tight line that the younger male couldn’t decipher was out of annoyance for being interrupted or guilt for nearly getting caught. Roxas fought with himself to swallow a mouthful of spit and let out a shaky breath, “I should go.”

No, he knew better than that. He hadn’t diluted his senses with a single taste of alcohol to be dealing with Seifer’s mind playing antics. The blond cleared his throat and ducked beneath his nemesis’s unmoving limb. Throwing a firmer, “I need to go,” over his shoulder, Roxas stepped closer to Hayner to take the keys he’d extended out to him with a swaying hand. All he wanted to do was forget about this faction, about anyone he’d looked in the eye, and the last thing he cared about now was whose carpet he was going to be passing out on for the rest of the night.


	2. Marble

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anybody who has read Chapter 1 prior to 4/27, I would suggest going back and reading it again. I added more context to the beach scene to slow down it's fast pace and it would really benefit you to take in the changes.
> 
> For readers both "old" and new, enjoy.

Roxas woke up to another pounding headache. It was starting to seem as though waking up with his head in pain was a habit; although, he still found it entirely unfair, considering he had been the only one in his group of friends who hadn’t been drinking that previous night. No matter, the pain wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been the night even before that, so he didn’t find the need to hunt down a medicine cabinet for any pills. He could survive without any, and he was slightly grateful for that as he pushed himself into a sitting position. Currently, Roxas was on the bedroom floor of his pal Hayner’s, and it was a great mystery as to how his muscles weren’t screaming at him for falling asleep without so much as a pillow on the carpet.

Craning his neck a little, Roxas could see that the other boy still sprawled out, completely asleep, in the comfort of his askew sheets. In the silence, he could even make out soft snores coming off of his friend’s figure.

He had never been one to shake people to get up. That was something that always happened to him, no matter how much complaining or kicking he tried to get whoever the person was to stop; so he turned away while threading his fingers through his feathery hair. Even without getting up and looking in a mirror, he could feel that his bedhead had attained an even worse kink than it would have acquired otherwise. Great.

What he really wished he could do was take a shower and put on a fresh set of clothes, something he hadn’t just picked out of the dirty pile like he had yesterday. The only problem with that was that he was still stuck without his car, and taking a shower here only to pull his current outfit back on wouldn’t make him feel any more clean than going without one. He would just want to retake one the second he got back to his own home.

Fine, he could live without a shower, just like he could live without any ibuprofen for his throbbing head. He turned his attention to the window, noting that the sun was shining through the cracks in the blinds, and it very well had to be near the afternoon or even later than that. Roxas was going to have to wait for Hayner to wake up to be able to go home, and whenever that would be was entirely a mystery. His friend’s sleep schedule was just as butchered as his own was, with or without a hangover.

Curious to know the exact time of day, he automatically reached for the cell phone in his pocket for an answer. When he pushed a finger down on the lock button and the screen remained black, he frowned down at the device. He pressed again. Nothing. The battery was completely dead. It had probably lost all of its juice hours ago, right after he had gone to sleep.

Well, whatever, he would just add that to the quickly growing list of other trivial things to annoy him on a daily basis. Hayner had an alarm clock on his nightstand in any case, as well as a laptop. He knew that his friend wouldn’t mind if he used it, so he put his phone back in his pocket and swiped the computer from its place to open up in his lap. It had only been in sleep mode, so it roared to life instantly. The time in the corner told him that it was hardly after one in the afternoon, which surprised Roxas a little. He had expected something worse than that. This had to be the earliest he had woken up in the last week or so, maybe since the start of his summer vacation.

His first instinct was to pull up Facebook, even though he wasn’t sure why. He typed the letters into the browser manically, logging into the only inbox he could access while his cell phone was dead in his pocket. If it weren’t for that fact, he wouldn’t be logging in now. He could hardly stand the website, really, so his lost battery was as good of an excuse as any to do it now. He had only made an account in the first place after unceasing nagging and pleading. One day, Olette had pushed him into a computer chair and nearly filled in all the information herself, and he’d checked up on his account at least once a day since.

Social media was such a repetitive, frustratingly obnoxious creation. He had never been one to understand what was so addicting, popular, or attractive about it. Between girls flooding his newsfeed with gripes, passive aggressiveness, drama, relationship updates, guys heavily flirting, and asking around as to where the next party is, Roxas found it all to be extremely boring and a complete waste of time. The only use he’d ever gotten out of it was the names that blew up his inbox. A lot of them were Hayner’s connections, mass invites, or somebody who could get the underage kids this or that for a small fee – if Roxas weren’t getting it from his parent’s liquor cabinet already.

There was a rustling of blankets behind him after he’d been mindlessly clicking and scrolling for an hour. His ears perked, and he registered the sharp intake of breath from his friend that announced he was awake. Roxas closed the laptop without bothering to log out of anything or even close closing his tabs, promptly turning to Hayner as the other teen was sitting up, stretching, and letting out a tired yawn. He wasn’t startled by seeing Roxas already awake and watching him, and he gave his friend a lazy wave as well as a smile. If he didn’t know the guy any better, the former blond might have thought the act was a little endearing.

Roxas gave a snort. “Could you at least try to act like you have a miserable hangover? You did not drink enough water before you passed out to excuse yourself of one.”

“Shut up, man,” Hayner shot back, the sleepiness quickly fading from his tone of voice. “You wanna explain to me how Mr. Sober looks like he’s been hit by a bus?”

“I thought I always looked like this.”

Hayner’s laugh was raw, his throat dry, as he slid off the edge of his bed to get onto his feet. He didn’t make a comment in response to that. They both knew there was more truth to the words than either of them would like to admit, which was exactly why the boy swerved off the topic. No matter what kind of dark humor Roxas tossed at him, Hayner was never wiling to talk about the reasoning behind it. “I do need some water, now that you mention it, or else I’m really going to start feeling what happened last night. You hungry?”

Roxas was in the ugly habit of feeding himself no earlier than four in the afternoon, and since it was hardly even three, it almost felt wrong to be putting something in his stomach. He really wasn’t hungry, yet he found himself nodding and aching to get himself off of Hayner’s floor. It wasn’t as if there was anything better to do in here, so getting something to eat would be good for him.

They both fell into a routine of picking out their own cereal of choice, weaving around each other, not so much as brushing fingers as they grabbed for bowls or other utensils. Their silence stretched out until Hayner had begun to pour milk all over his Lucky Charms. “Hey, did I see you talking to Seifer yesterday?”

It was an odd question. Roxas found himself almost gaping at the other, wondering how many brain cells the other lost with last night’s inebriation, and his words were sardonic. “Uhh… You were the one who told me he was there. Remember?”

“No, not then, dummy. I’m talkin’ about when I came to drag you off and take us home.” Home meaning Hayner’s place, clearly. “I thought I saw you talking to him. Maybe I had imagined it…”

“Oh.” It was that little word of realization that had Hayner trailing off, his eyes resting on him, expectant brows raised as the syllable slipped out of Roxas’ mouth. He knew that look, knew that there was no feasible way to get himself out of explaining the meaning behind a sound that came out so discerned. Roxas fought back the urge to cringe, keeping his gaze down, as he slipped into the second stool away from where the other teenager had sat. He didn’t want to think about the closeness he and the college student had shared after sunset, much less describe the event to somebody like Hayner Swensson. It was a wonder as to how his ears didn’t burn up at the memory of Seifer hovering over him with parted lips, while his friend waited on him for an answer to his unspoken question.

At the very least, Roxas had been lucky that Hayner hadn’t been able to notice their almost-kiss, or he would have most certainly hounded him from the beginning. The boy wasn’t known to dance around subjects. If he wanted to know something, he was loud, intrusive, and persistent until you spilled every last detail. No matter if you didn’t want to. He sounded all too casual about the conversation to have expected something  _friendly_  going on when he had interrupted their conversation. He could come up with a few white lies to dodge that bullet.

“There’s not much to tell you. He was pretty drunk, so most of what he said didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Seifer walked up to me and told me that I piss him off for simply existing in the same universe as him.”

“He would say that to you even if he were sober, Roxas.”

“It’s not just that. He didn’t say it with the same kind of bitterness he always does. He was almost… chummy?” 

Right. As if he weren’t acting like he wanted to be more than pals back then.

“ _Chummy_? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just— friendly. Good-natured. Whatever you want to call it.” He would rather hit himself in the teeth than be talking about this right now.

The word choice was pretty stupid in itself, and the humored glint behind his friend’s brown eyes was nothing less than obvious, no matter what the real meaning behind the term may be. Hayner’s nose crinkled with his grin as he went on: “He’s been different, lately. I thought he might have been trying to make friends with you. It sounds like that was the case, if you ask me.”

“You weren’t there. Maybe he wants to be friends with  _you_ , but I think he just wants to mess with me the same way he always does.”

Only last night couldn’t have been considered ‘the same way.’ That was the first time Seifer had ever looked at him with hooded eyes, had ever gotten so close into his personal bubble, had ever used that tone of voice with him. For as long as Roxas had known him, Seifer had always kept to his own space. Sure, he’d get in his face every so often, but his attitude had been smug, snide, or indifferent. There were few times that the duo hadn’t been at each other’s throats, such as the time Seifer willingly offered to help him with a homework project before taking off for the college dorms, and even then he was fairly curt toward the other.

Between him, Olette, Pence, and Hayner, it was the other blond who was the unelected leader of the pack, so he would know better than anyone the rivalries between Seifer and themselves. He would know perfectly well what “the same way” was supposed to stand for, which saved Roxas from another raised brow and unwanted questions about what he could have meant by ‘always does.’

“That hardly makes sense. After me, you talk to him more than Pence or Olette. You also got along with him better than I did all throughout high school.”

“That is such bullshit. You talk to him more, so  _you_  get along with him better. Not me.”

“The two of you don’t fight as much…” Hayner tried, still convinced.

“You blow up when he teases you. I give him sarcastic comments or try to ignore him. That’s the only reason why you think we get along better, because we don’t yell back and forth to each other.”

“…Yeah, I guess…” Sounding a lot less interested in the subject, Hayner returned to his breakfast and let silence fall between them.

Relieved that the conversation had finally been dropped, Roxas began spooning his cereal into his mouth. He was grateful for the resounding crunch in his jaw and his ears, the sound loud enough to drown out his thoughts about Seifer entirely. He kept his eyes forward, focused on nothing in particular, as he grabbed onto the first thing that came to his mind so that he couldn’t keep circling the memory.

With nothing other than breakfast in front of him, in an otherwise pearly white kitchen, the desperate train of thought at hand fell upon his Cap’N Crunch.

Cap’N Crunch was an entirely okay cereal until you got to the aftertaste, and then it was downright awful. Roxas was certain that there had to be somebody inside of the Quaker Oats manufacturing warehouse who was paid to break down drugs and other sorts of pills into a powder that they sprinkled over its corn and oats product like it was a new kind of sugar. He despised the way that it made his mouth tingle for the next two hours, no matter how many times he brushed his teeth to get rid of it, feeling like a poor dog whose owner had gotten peanut butter stuck to the roof of its mouth. Eating Cap’N Crunch was relative to having cotton mouth, which was why he had told himself a dozen times in the past that he was never, ever going to be picking up another box again. The fuzzy aftertaste after crunching the cereal down simply wasn’t worth it, although he somehow managed to forget about his hatred for it until after he’d already poured himself a bowl. He always ended up eating it anyhow.

Roxas was absentmindedly stirring his spoon around half eaten cereal, frowning down at the remaining rectangles that were starting to grow soggy, cursing it as well as himself for never being able to remember his oath to never take another bite from this or any other box. How did he get away with forgetting that he hated the stuff every time he managed to get up in time for breakfast?

He snapped out of his thoughts when he realized that there was a hand waving just inches in front of his nose. Jolting back, he looked to the side where Hayner was calmly waiting for the daydreamer to get his head out of the clouds. After all these years of knowing each other, being friends, the taller boy was entirely used to how spacey Roxas was.

Hayner had his cell phone in hand, more likely than not opened up to his message inbox. Roxas was sure he hadn’t noticed the guy grab for the mobile device as they left his room, but he must have, otherwise he wouldn’t be playing with it right now. “Pence is asking if we want to hang out at his place later. Nothing crazy, just video games and stuff. He said Olette’s gonna be there.”

It would be a nice change of pace. Roxas didn’t have any desire to babysit his friends as they waved their sobriety to the wind, or to carpool anybody home, or to even see any sort of crowd today. If it was just going to be the four of them lazing about in Pence’s basement, he was up for it.

“Yeah. Drop me off at home so I can shower and change first, then I’ll meet up with you guys.”

“Awesome. I’ll let him know.” Hayner was already tapping his thumbs across the keyboard on his phone as he spoke.

Deciding that he didn’t have the appetite to take another bite of soggy Cap’n Shit, Roxas picked up his bowl to discard it in the sink, and then he returned to Hayner’s room in search of his abandoned shoes. The other blond wasn’t too far behind him, saying something about needing a shower as well, and they were collectively getting into Hayner’s Honda within minutes.

Not a word was exchanged between them until Hayner had backed out of the driveway. “Even if it may be a little weird at first, I think it’d be a good idea to become friends with Seifer. He’s got some good connections.”

Roxas didn’t try to hide the fact that he was staring at the ceiling of the vehicle with every intent on burning a hole through it, past the clouds in the sky, all the way to whatever omniscient power people may or may not believe in, who pulled the strings in this world, thankful that the ride was only going to last until they were across the neighborhood. He didn’t have any personal beliefs in God, not in any sense or fashion, but it felt appropriate to do so in the moment. He wasn’t going to last more than a couple words in this conversation without wanting to take off his seat belt and throw himself out the door with the vehicle still in motion.

He missed his opportunity to respond when Hayner took a sideways glance at him, scowling at him, then both managed to keep his eyes on the road and the steering wheel straight as he slammed a fist into his passenger’s shoulder. “As if it would kill you to do it! Don’t you think it’s about time that we grew up a little, and put our stupid middle school rivalry behind us?”

Although the irony in Hayner’s words was laughable, Roxas found the suggestion that they “grow up” too ludicrous to do anything other than grit his teeth. At eighteen years old, about to enter a new world involving university, they spent the majority of their time drinking, taking a hit, and pointedly ignoring anybody who crossed their path who didn’t meet the same kind of style or financial stability that their families had. Unless, of course, those less fortunate kids somehow managed to have even more booze and illegal activities in mind than they did all on their own.

“Seifer and I haven’t had it bad in a while,” he said, trying to save himself from more lectures to make friends with Almasy.

“That’s debatable!” Hayner shot him a skeptical look, a knowing deep within his teddy-bear brown eyes, and Roxas found himself choking back a groan.

He waved his hands in earnest, emphasizing, “I said  _in a while_.”

“Whatever you say, man.” Hayner pulled up to the curb outside of Roxas’ house and shifted into park. He turned to his friend more fully before the boy had even had the chance to remove his seat-belt. “Just… think about it, I guess. I’ll see you in a little bit.”

“Yeah, later.” He pushed the door open and gave a small wave back as he crossed the yard. Anything that had to do with Seifer wasn’t what was important right now. Roxas needed a shower, badly.

It was over an hour later that Roxas showed up in Pence’s driveway, clean, newly dressed, and with a bit of charge to his phone. He walked through the front door without so much as knocking. There would be no point, anyway. His friend lived in his own basement most of the time, and his parents were almost never home to come to the door themselves. He’d been letting himself in like this for years, calling out his friend’s name as he descended the nearby staircase. He vaguely heard someone shout something back at him as he got to the bottom, but mostly, he heard scuffling and Olette shouting something about being sick and tired of playing Mario Kart, and that she wanted to put in Smash Brothers for once.

He hung back, like he usually did, and Pence approached him with a genuine smile and warm, brown eyes. His were a lot darker than Hayner’s, almost red in certain lighting. “Hey, man, what’s up?”

“Just the usual… Bernadette slept in my bed last night, for the millionth time. I’m going to have to vacuum my sheets and my pillow case before I go to bed, or I’ll be puking up hairballs for a week. Why do cats have to shed  _so much_?”

He laughed softly, shoulders shaking. “You know that you can give her a bath or take her to see a groomer, right? I doubt your family can’t afford that.”

“She’s not my cat, though. It isn’t my job to be taking care of her.”

“Then I take it that there isn’t anybody who’s brushing her every day, is there? You know long haired cats are supposed to be.”

“I dunno. I never pay enough attention to tell if she gets brushed or not.”

“If you aren’t willing to take care of her, then you don’t have any room to complain about her, Roxas,” Pence teased. He could be a very perceptive person and knew well enough that his blond friend didn’t dislike his mother’s cat as much as he let on. If he did, he would have tried to kick her out of his room a few years ago, rather than let her continue to go in and out.

“Yeah… you have a point there.” He smiled back, only slightly, letting a brief moment of silence develop between the two of them.

“You know, after all that talk, I expected that the four of us wouldn’t be able to get out of bed until Sunday afternoon,” Pence said with a glance in Hayner’s direction. The boy had to have arrived there just shortly before Roxas had if he’d gone back home to take his own shower. He didn’t look up, not having heard a word out of the raven’s mouth, occupied with telling Olette she had  _better not dare_  pick Icicle Mountain in Smash Brothers Melee if she didn’t want her head stuffed into the toilet. “None of us drank nearly as much as we said we would.”

“That’s a first. You drove Olette home, didn’t you?”

“Duh. You know how useless she gets when she’s hammered.”

Yeah, he was highly aware of the way their mutual friend turned into a sloppy, stumbling, giggly, and slurred mess any time she has had a lot to drink. Any time being the majority of the time, at almost every party. Referring to her as ‘useless’ was almost merciful, because they often spoke about her situation openly like this and with more derogatory terms. She didn’t glance up from the television screen as they spoke, too wrapped up in beating her game character on Hayner’s to listen in on them.

“I guess everyone was excited for something to do that wasn’t part of the usual routine, especially since it took place on the beach. Everybody knows Sunset is the least shitty part in all of Twilight Hill.” He wandered over to the couch as he replied, Pence following behind them, and the two planted themselves on separate cushions beside each other.

“Don’t you think that it’s kind of weird that Sunset isn’t more popular than it is? Even if everything else around here isn’t so great… who doesn’t like the beach?”

“I’ve been asking myself that question for a long time. More for us, I suppose…”

“Yeah. So… um… I heard what Axel Vasile said to you yesterday,” Pence ventured, brown eyes entirely curious to know the details about the situation. All of his friends seemed to have a bad habit of nosing their way into every social experience he managed to have these days. How word seemed to spread so fast around here was beyond Roxas’ comprehension. He figured that it had something to do with how eventually dull the rest of the gossip in the area was, and that still didn’t sit right with him. The rumor mill spun too fast for its own good. “It sure sounded… strange.”

He had been so distracted mulling over Seifer’s weird change of attitude that Roxas had completely forgotten about  _that_  guy. The memories came rushing back into him like an ocean wave would come crashing down on an unsuspecting surfer, knocking down the recessive walls he’d put up before falling asleep last night. Roxas was left gaping at Pence, thinking of how the college student had appeared behind Almasy from out of nowhere, absolutely nowhere in the broad daylight of the beach, his eyes meeting with Roxas’ own as they glinted, wolfish. He hadn’t wasted any time laying Roxas out like an open book, pointing out his flaws and accusing him of being a whiny brat as if he had once done something horribly wrong to offend the man. Roxas was positive that he hadn’t smelled any drugs or booze on him, so the action couldn’t have even been excused by idiocy under the influence.

Perhaps Axel was simply really, really good at hiding the effects of drinking or getting high, much like how Hayner somehow managed to avoid getting a hangover that morning. It would be a probable idea, if it weren’t such a stupid one. Nobody was that talented at getting baked. There wasn’t a single other excuse that Roxas could think of that would have caused that kind of a reaction. He was certain deep down in the crevices of his mind that he had never crossed paths with Vasile in the past. Even if he had been drunk off his ass, he was sure that he wouldn’t have forgotten meeting someone like him.

Roxas had to lean his weight back on a single palm before getting himself to speak. “Yeah, it was weird.”

He knew that he wasn’t using a very accurately descriptive word as soon as it had left his mouth. “Weird” didn’t come close to explaining what it was like for the redhead to have unleashed his sudden, vindictive hatred towards him. If Roxas were remembering correctly, he would go as far as to say that the man had intent to raise hell on him the moment that they had first made eye contact. It was in the way that his emerald eyes had danced that raised the suspicion. For whatever reason the guy would have spat venom in that way was beyond him.

“I don’t have an explanation for it, man,” Roxas went on, a little hesitantly. He could feel Pence’s stare burning into his skull, even though his own eyes were focused away from him. “The guy just… blew up without warning. I swear I didn’t do anything to start it.”

“Huh… Well, I’m sure you’ll get the chance to ask him about it, soon enough.” That got him to finally look back up at his friend, blinking in bewilderment at how self-assured Pence sounded in his own words. He seemed to get the idea that Roxas didn’t have any idea what he was talking about, so he continued on to say, “We’re going to start college classes soon. The guy knows a lot of people. I mean,  _a lot_  of people.’

“Why the hell does everybody seem to know who this guy is when I’ve never heard of him in my entire life?” He tried not to pout, but he was probably pouting. His friend who sat next to him was giving Roxas that kind of look.

Pence gave a small shrug of the shoulders; only, it was Hayner who responded by calling over his shoulder, “It’s because you’re a total space case, shithead.”

“You never care to hear who’s part of the In Crowd,” Olette added, eyes still glued to the game.

Suppressing an agitated snort, Roxas folded his arms across his chest. “All right, well, I’m listening now. So what’s his damage?”

Hayner spoke without putting down his controller, hitting pause, or even turning around to face the other blond. “You’d have to talk to one of the other college guys to get dirt on him. I don’t really know anything about him other than he likes to throw parties and get attention.”

The brunette beside him gave a nod of her head. “He can’t be any older than twenty-five. He’s enrolled at Radiant University, like the rest of us, and lives with two roommates. I think they’re both majoring in music? I can’t figure out how else they wound up in the same apartment together. They’re not anything alike.”

“How do you even know this stuff? Dammit–  _I thought I turned off the Home-run bat!_ ”

“I asked one of the girls who was there yesterday. Obviously. She pointed both of them out to me. I don’t know how you couldn’t have noticed the one with the mullet. Nobody wears their hair like that anymore, and he wasn’t necessarily quiet, either. Also, you’re just mad because I got to the bat before you did.”

“The point I was trying to get at…” Pence continued more quietly, letting the teens on his floor throw a couple insults back and forth between each other. “Is that I wouldn’t be surprised if we ran into him again before the fall semester.”

Roxas dropped his face into his hands and let out a groan, unaware there was anything that could have possibly made him hate his life any more than he previously had.

**Author's Note:**

> I was going to write about Disney World and I'm not sure what happened, but this didn't turn into the Happiest Fic on Earth. Let me know what you think in the comments!


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